Railway lines thread the interior of the Chugoku region of southern Honshu, the main island of Japan, Most of these are poorly utilised, serving rapidly ageing and declining populations.
I’ve made it my mission to catch as many of these lines as I can. In the case of the Sanko Line I failed, and the same is probably true of the Mine Line, which was cut by floods. So when I heard that the part of the Geibi Line I hadn’t travelled on is the least used line in JR West, I made it a priority.
The Geibi Line runs from Bitchu-Kojiro to Hiroshima, but no trains operate over its entire length. The best you can do is three trains. A further challenge is two of the sections have very few and infrequent services.
I begin my journey in Okayama after saying a temporary farewell to B and Alex, who will go ahead of me to Osaka.
I catch the Yakumo Express to Niimi along the Hakubi Line. The Yakumo now uses the brand new type 273 tilt trains, finally replacing the fifty years old 381 series that have transported us between the Sanin Coast and Okayama all those times before.
The bronze exterior is very striking and the wood, green and blue interior is very pleasant indeed.
The tilt mechanism has also apparently been improved, but I’m not sure I noticed. I’m used to bumpy trains.
We follow the Takahashi river, through forested valleys that we last time covered by snow, past the quarries, until we reach Niimi, which is where the Geibi Line services depart from.
I’ve caught a train too early and now have almost two hours to waste before the next Geibi service. There’s a tourist information service opposite the station, so I go there.
Oh no, there are other gaikokujin there already! What are they doing here this apparently arse end place? There’s a man, his wife and their three daughters. He says hello and tells me that he used to teach English here many years ago and brought his family to take a look.
They buy sake and snacks.
I buy a Yakumo hat and face towel.
I ask the attendant what there is to do around here. She hands me a guide. There is an art museum, a traditional area and, well, that’s it. I wander around thinking I’ll walk in the heat up to the gallery, but Google directs me the wrong way to a scary car only bridge.
I follow the river back towards the Niimi Gotenmachi, admire the herons and cormorants, the art on the riverbank walls, then decide it’s too far by the time I reach the Kishin Line crossing and turn back. Then I discover the signposted underpass to the gallery, but I don’t want to risk missing my train, so I walk back towards the station.
I don’t mind the walk. There’s a real sense of a dying town here. Buildings abandoned, but still decorated as if there is life inside. A motorcycle repair garage full of grime and still working. A grand bank with a customer emerging from it.
Opposite the station is Shirube, a cafe. I can’t resist a quaint place like this and it has quite a few customers. I sit down with a slice of cheesecake and an iced chocolate. Too late, I notice that I could have ordered a proper lunch there.
Sated and having done something I am ready to leave. After I buy a can of pudding flavoured jelly drink from the station vending machine. It’s okay.
My train to Bingo-Ochiai is waiting on the platform. A single silver rail motor with red and yellow stripes. It is my favourite train, the KiHa120!
I board. This one has inward and transverse seats. Some other passengers, a couple of school girls and a couple of young males are already on board, along with some older passengers.
Standing at the front, where I would usually be, is a railway worker in a high visibility uniform.
The KiHa120 is a cross between a bus and a train, though far better than the former. The doors close and we set off with a deep growl.
From Niimi to Bitchu-Kojiro we run on the Hakubi Line. The line follows the Kojiro River until Tojo, where it changes to the Nariwa River valley, leaves the valleys until rejoining at the Hitotobara River that flows past the terminus of this train at Bingo-Ochiai.
The landscape is the bright green of a Japanese summer. We begin in rice fields along the flatter parts of the valley. Many of the stops are hamlets, not really towns, with just a smattering of houses. Yet the unmanned wooden station buildings hint at a much busier past.
Most of the Geibi Line is single track, aside from passing loops at some stations. We pass through green tunnels where the vegetation has been cut around the tracks. It still slaps at the side. Fallen leaves whirl like butterflies in our wake.
The line rises into the mountains and our speed slows. The river below flows through grey boulders, glimpses through a canopy of bright green. It is such beautiful scenery that the heart aches that this view would be denied should the line ever be closed.
Some of the young men on the train get up and film out from the rear, snap photos of the scenery. I am rarely alone in photography on the trains in Japan.
The relief of the engine can be heard as we cross the peak of the line and make our way downwards into Bingo-Ochiai, our terminus.
Three KiHa120 trains meet, each with different livery. Ours will return back towards Niimi, another, which I will catch, does the onward run to Miyoshi. The final rail motor is decked out in an attractive pink and yellow livery and will head up the Kisuki Line. This line, the second least used in the JR West network has an amazing set of switchbacks and the Orochi loop. We rode along it years ago in the sadly discontinued Okuizumo Oroshi Torokko tourist train from here.
The junction of these lines, Bingo-Ochiai, was once a bustling station servicing the steam trains that carried passengers and freight across this land. By the time of our last visit only a ryokan remained. Now, even that is closed.
There are plenty of rail fans here today, cameras out, snapping photos of the trains, collecting their station stamps.
Only one of them joins me on the train to Miyoshi, an elderly man who opens the closed curtains. I help with some, the train driver comes through and does the rest. Unlike the last train, this KiHa120 features only inward facing seating. Then we begin our journey along another very quiet section of the Geibi Line. The track is overgrown with weeds and our pace is slow. The views are very pretty, however.
The wooden station buildings often show banners in support of the railway. Some are decorated inside. But the loneliness inside the train demonstrate why this railway line faces closure.
Down from the mountains, at Bingo-Shobara, a large station with cartoonish statues of baseballers in action on the platform, we finally gain a couple of new passengers. A bit later on the carriage becomes crowded with school children heading home for the day and I know that this stretch will be okay, even if the scenery is less spectacular now.
Miyoshi, the terminus of this train, is a city of about 50,000 people and the junction between the Geibi Line and the Fukuen Line. Once it was also the start of the Sanko Line to Gotsu before it closed. I have been on the stretch of the Geibi Line between Hiroshima and Bingo-Ochiai before, back when we caught the Okuizumo Oroshi, so I had planned to take the Fukuen Line to Fuchu and Fukuyama.
But the train to Hiroshima reaches it faster and there is a sense of completeness in riding the entirety of the Geibi Line in a day. So I board the final KiHa120 of the day along with quite a few other commuters, mostly school students.
Judging from the trains heading in the other direction, mostly orange KiHa 47s, I am quite lucky to get this class of rail motor.
The landscape is mostly flat now, curving through farmland and corridors of greenery. I love the way the train winds its way so close to houses and past vignettes of rural life. It is packed enough that I can’t take many photographs.
I even nod off for a little bit. I am quite exhausted.
We arrive into Hiroshima Station, the terminus of the Geibi Line. It is the fourth time I have passed through here this trip! I’m hungry for some dinner, but most of the bento have sold out for the day. I grab some sandwiches and an onigiri from a stall on the platform and jump aboard a Sakura Shinkansen service to Shin-Osaka, along with quite a few Italians. Why so many Italians this trip?
Fortunately I get hold of a window seat after the first stop so I can recharge one of my dying phones. Then I sit back, listen to music and stare out the window. As much as I love taking the bumpy loc trains, at the end of a long day it’s nice to relax on a Shinkansen.
At the sight of the brightly lit signs of family restaurant chains along the road I feel a sense of sadness, a realisation that we’ll be leaving Japan all too soon. I’d love to be sitting with the family in one of them, calmly dining before heading back for the night, no stress.
That isn’t happening. Instead, the other two have gone ahead to Kyoto to check out the Gion Festival and I’m supposed to join them. When I arrive at Shin-Osaka I must quickly change trains to the Rapid Service to Kyoto, as my rail pass doesn’t cover the Tokaido Shinkansen.
Two stops later and I am in Kyoto. But by the time I jump aboard the subway to Shijo Station, the other two have given up trying to work out where to meet and headed back to Osaka.
I emerge into a very crowded street. Food stalls line the edge of the Karasuma Dori, pedestrian only for the festival. There’s all the standard stall foods, mostly fried. I’m not sure I can stomach them, but I join the crowd. On side streets are the festival floats, great wooden contraptions bearing lanterns. A group of attendants blowing flutes marches past.
I explore for a while, buy a couple of chicken patties on a stick, then catch the subway back. Then back on the Rapid Service to Osaka. I can tell that the people ahead of me are from Osaka because they stand to the right on the escalator when everyone else stands left.
This time I get off at Osaka Station and change to the Subway Midosuji Line to Honmachi. It takes me a while to find my way out due to the Expo pedestrian traffic being directed through the underground corridors.
I emerge into dark streets devoid of their daily office worker traffic. It takes me a while to find the hotel down the side streets. There doesn’t seem to be much else open here.
It’s good to see the other two, but I am utterly exhausted and in need of a wash. Fortunately, our compact hotel room has a Japanese style bathroom with a wet area where you can sit.
I’ve caught 10 trains today, travelled the length of the Geibi Line and seen something of a major festival in Kyoto. I hope the Geibi Line doesn’t close. There are some very scenic stretches. I should like to return to Bingo-Ochiai too, and catch the Kisuki Line again. Maybe I could take it even slower next time. Stop along the way. Stay a night. Maybe.